28 March 2014

Saturday 29 March will see over 200 athletes toe the startline for the men’s and women’s IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in the Danish city of Copenhagen.

Following the withdrawal of Rory Fraser (coach: Art Acevedo) with an achilles injury, Great Britain & Northern Ireland will now have just three athletes in action. The solo entrant in the men’s race is Ben Moreau (Ken Green) who will look to put his major championship experience to good use in what is a strong men’s field.  Back in 2010 Moreau finished 11th and 24th over the marathon distance at the Commonwealth Games and European Championships respectively but will ultimately have his work cut out to stop Eritrean Zeresenay Tadese going for an unprecedented sixth World Half Marathon title.

Following victory at the trial race in Reading last month, Susan Partridge (Steve Jones) will lead the GB & NI women’s entries and will be looking to follow on from an extremely impressive 10th place finish at the 2013 IAAF World Championships marathon in Moscow.

Twenty second when this event was held in Bulgaria two years ago, Partridge is under no illusions over the quality of opposition at the championships but will look to improve on her previous best now that she is more comfortable competing at an international level.

“I’m very pleased that I’m able to represent GB & NI again this spring and I’m keen to try and keep the momentum going after my 10th place finish at the World Championships Marathon last summer. I’ve been building up my training since the beginning of the year and things are starting to come together again so I’m hopeful I’ll be in good enough shape to be competitive in a strong international field.”

Joining her on the start line in the women’s race will be Alyson Dixon who was third in Reading last month and boasts a personal best of 71.19 from 2013. Dixon was part of the GB & NI team for this event when it was held in Birmingham in 2009 and so also knows what to expect on the day.

The women’s race is first underway at 1.30pm (GMT), with the men’s race kicking off 25 minutes later.

To keep up to date with how the team are getting on make sure you follow @BritAthletics on twitter.